Blue ribbon technology

Teaching Pre K-8, Aug/Sep 2002 by Lindroth, Linda

TECHNOLOGY IN YOUR CLASSROOM

Back to School means setting long-term goals and planning for the individual needs of each student in your classroom. There are so many tools available that can be used to help each student reach his or her full potential; sometimes it becomes overwhelming to try to independently review every tool.

As always, I'll be bringing you detailed reviews of some of the best that technology has to offer for the K-8 classroom. My goal is to help you with this review process so you're better-prepared to choose the technology products that are right for your classroom.

This column's title and focus has changed from "Blue Ribbon Software" to "Blue Ribbon Technology" to give me an opportunity to review both the "software" (delivered via CD-ROM or DVD) and "webware" (delivered via Internet) that's available for use in today's "connected" classroom.

Learning Milestones

Looking for a way to strengthen student achievement in reading and math? Need one program that will help remedial students and accelerate advanced learners? Learning Milestones from Achievement Technologies offers online instruction for grades 3-8. Instruction modules include Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary and Math. All of the modules act as supplements to regular classroom work and offer individual assessment, practice and monitoring.

The Reading Comprehension units are based on social studies themes with story content taken from Cobblestone magazine. Lessons include before-reading activities such as prediction, an idea web or a cloze passage. During-reading activities help pace reading and check for understanding with questions. After-- reading interactions test basic recall and reinforce the six comprehension skills: cause and effect, main idea, author's purpose, identifying important detail, sequencing and inference. Quizzes and tests assess student progress with each lesson.

My students really enjoy the main idea charts and the supporting details charts. I really feel the evaluation questions have helped my students improve their attention to details when they read. The Classroom Guides are great for class follow-up or homework and include reproducible worksheets for each reading lesson and offer cross-curricular projects for creative writing and art. All the pages are in PDF format for easy downloading and printing.

The Reading Vocabulary component offers a comprehensive unit of developmentally-appropriate vocabulary words. Lessons teach the words in the context of a short story with a focus on math, science and social studies. This module also uses six strategies to determine the word meanings: root word, synonym or definition, context clues, compound word, pronunciation and dictionary. Activities recycle until the student has mastered the vocabulary.

With more than 100 math lessons based on NCTM standards, Learning Milestones offers lots of opportunities to build solid math skills. Warm-up uses real-life problems to introduce concepts and students get tools to help solve problems. The Review gives students practice with a built-in coach to provide detailed feedback and instruction. The Classroom Guides provide word problems for added skill practice.

The Scope & Sequence outline and the Alignments to national tests and state standards are a big bonus. For more information, visit the SkillsTutor website at www.skilstutor.com or call 888-391-- 3245. Basic setup is $2,500.

Soliloquy Reading Assistant

Soliloquy Reading Assistant helps support students in grades 2-5 as they practice oral reading in order to improve reading fluency. The goal is to be able to read quickly enough to comprehend the meaning of the text.

Using a microphone and headphones, students read and reread text aloud and get help, when needed, as they read. If a student does not know a word, Soliloquy provides the pronunciation and prompts the student to repeat it and continue reading with minimal interruption. Students can request a pronunciation or a definition by pressing the space bar at any time.

The Library CD-ROM offers high-interest fiction, non-fiction and poetry at different difficulty levels. Students can hear each story read aloud, read each story aloud or hear themselves read each story. Quizzes check comprehension and vocabulary understanding after reading. Each story earns Power Points, which help students work toward a goal. After each reading, students can take a quiz for comprehension to earn Quiz points.

A "How am I doing?" button gives students feedback on their reading and highlights words in green for words that are read correctly, red for words that required help and gray for words not read.

The Reports provide progress information. The Points Screen lets students see their points and how they have improved over time. The Teachers Screen provides detailed information about the stories read, total Power Points and suggested grade range for stories.

I really like the Teacher button on each screen that shows progress. It is also great to use this program during Center time to let students practice reading aloud without peer pressure. I usually have students pair up to help each other read.